Choosing a web host for your site can be tough at times. Especially so, when there are thousands of hosting companies claiming features that will make your jaw touch the floor.

In this guide, I will be giving you a lot of insight on how to plan and choose the best web host you can.

Determine what your site will be about

A battle well planned is half won.

If you can plan what your website will be about and think of the space and demands it will raise as time goes by, then there’s no stopping you from choosing an excellent web host.

You should muse on the following questions before you get started.

Which is the platform that you are going to use? Wordpress is one of the most popular ones that is used to build sites. You can also go for Drupal, Joomla, php etc.

The kind of site that you will be creating. A site with lots of videos is going to take a higher bandwidth. Same stands true for a site that features downloads be it psd files, images, videos, songs, textures or graphics.

Can you estimate the traffic that you will generate in the first year? Traffic estimates from sites like SimilarWeb are pretty accurate and you can do a competitor analysis to see where you stand.

Proximity of the server to the location from where most of the traffic gets generated for your competitors may save a second or two in loading times. It’s been proven time and again that lower loading times can increase conversions.

What additional services do you require?

For example email services, managed hosting and offsite backups.

How important is uptime to you? Does your site generate income and how would 98% uptime impact you, compared to 99.99%?

What support channels are required? Is 24/7 phone and live chat required or will out of hours email support suffice.

Are their email services any good? Do they offer VPS plans? If so, is it off-shore or on shore? Here’s a knownhost coupon to get you started.

Price

Undoubtedly, price is one of the most definitive deciding factors when choosing a hosting service. However, it’s generally true that we get what we pay for. Do not go for the cheapest option out there as the promises are often left hanging in the air. So instead of falling for the cheapest offer, consider something that’s affordably priced yet suited to your needs. Not only webhosting but support quality can fall if it has been outsourced to some other country and there are other many other features that may go south which we will discuss later.

Also, I’d never recommend free hosting. The reasons for the same are manifold but primarily, free hosting is filled with advertisements from the sponsor. Secondly, free hosting limits bandwidth usage, you get no control over the c-panel or SSH. In some cases I have seen that they also limit the way you can do on page optimization for your sites. This is especially true for the Godaddy website builder.

What kind of websites does it host?

There are some hosts that host only a particular kind of website- maybe one built on a particular CMS like Wordpress. There also may be hosts that do host several kind of CMSes but only specialize in one. For example, Bluehost specializes in Wordpress hosting and you can even find a link to Bluehost on Wordpress.org.

On the other hand, a host like WPEngine only hosts Wordpress sites, not Joomla, not Drupal or any other CMS.

Features and add ons

Features and add-ons are an import consideration when purchasing hosting plans. For example, Namecheap provides free who is privacy for one year for any domain you register.

That’s a pretty useful add-on that you can have.

Email features

Email is generally consider secondary when purchasing hosting. But if you’re in a business that involves lots of prospecting then you may need to consider how good their email features are.

Once I had an account at Bluehost that was suspended for some time because I sent way too many emails.

And that’s only part of the equation. There are additional things worth considering— whether the mailbox is big enough to store all your important emails, whether they provide backup and how easy it is to navigate around. The latter point can be given less weightage since if you don’t like the mailbox you can always forward it to Gmail or Yahoo or others.

Speed

Speed is an important factor as well.

Shared hosting plans generally don’t make the cut when it comes to speed. If you want your site to load all in good time then a VPS provider or a Dedicated server is what you ought to be looking out for.

Your website needs personalized attention and that can only be provided by a good VPS plan.

That’s not to say you should go with it since the beginning. Just when you see traffic improving you should make the switch.

Concluding thoughts

The success of your business does not only depend on your hard work but also on getting services that provide the best.

If you compromise on that, you may not do very well. You have seen the best tips for making the correct choice when hosting your site. Go ahead and follow these tips.